Over the years, a variety of systems have been developed for tracking and treating components of products during manufacture of the products such as in an assembly operation. These workpiece tracking and treating systems include, for example, component assembly, bonding, surface roughing, trimming, shaping, cutting, and adhesive applying in the shoe manufacturing process. Some examples of such systems in the shoe manufacturing industry can be seen in Japanese Patent Document 5-337002 by Reader et al. titled "Bonding Method In Shoe Manufacturing Machine And Bonding Machine For Practicing The Method," U.S. Pat. No. 4,866,802 by Stein et al. titled "Roughing Machine For Footwear (sic) Upper Assemblies And A System That Includes The Roughing Machine But Typically Includes As Well Other Machines Ahead Of And Following," and U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,958 by Davies titled "Adhesive Applying Machine."
Additionally, workpiece tracking and treating systems have included cameras for identifying a workpiece, for determining the three dimensions of a workpiece, and for applying a treatment to a workpiece. These workpieces include not only shoe components, but also include, for example, circuit board components, various machine components, computer components, semiconductor components, automobile components, various containers, and tools. Examples of these systems can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,682 by Pryor titled "Robot Vision Using Targets," U.S. Pat. No. 5,280,436 by Kubota et al. titled "Method For Measuring Three-Dimensional Position Of Object To Be Captured And Method For Capturing The Object," U.S. Pat. No. 5,280,542 by Ozeki et al. "XYZ Coordinates Measuring System," and U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,615 by Maiorca et al. titled "Method For Dispensing Viscous Materials A Constant Height Above A Workpiece Surface."
Despite the advancement of these systems over the years, much of the focus of these advancements have been on more sophisticated imaging systems such as using high speed processing for cameras and developing complex XYZ coordinates for identifying the unit being tracked, flaws in the unit being tracked, or locating a portion of the unit being tracked for assembly or other purposes such as in a production process. Nevertheless, these systems fail to provide a simplified and effective control of the treatment of the units or workpieces upon which a desired operation is to be accomplished.
Further, for a variety of reasons, the shoe industry has been hesitant to adopt systems for tracking and controlling shoe components. A portion of this hesitance can be attributable to the custom nature of shoes in general. Shoes, for example, are manufactured in a variety of sizes and shapes. Like various clothing fashions, shoe styles change rapidly throughout the year, and shoe manufacturers must quickly adapt to these new styles and trends or else risk losing significant market share.